


The Game Between Life and Death

by kealin



Series: Life and Death [2]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Gen, M/M, Major character death - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-25
Updated: 2014-08-25
Packaged: 2018-02-14 14:32:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2195382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kealin/pseuds/kealin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re not the only one with a sense of humor. You always seem to forget about the Fates.”</p>
<p>At the reminder of the three beings that constantly felt the need to dip their fingers into his business, Life makes a face. “I don’t enjoy their sense of humor, though.”</p>
<p>“No one ever does,” Death agrees.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Game Between Life and Death

It is at the young age of twenty-four that Kuroko Tetsuya, while walking across the street, is hit by a car and dies two days later in his hospital bed.

In his true form as Death, he watches unobtrusively as his friends and family are informed of his passing. He hears and sees them each from where he stands beside the mortal body of Kuroko Tetsuya in his hospital room because death is everywhere and nowhere at once. At his funeral, he observes them with a fondness of an old friend who had always watched over them from the moment of their birth, and will continue to do so to their inevitable death.

He watches Kise Ryouta more closely because he is Life in this lifetime, and Life often forgets his true face, as life has the face of many, while death only has one. In this lifetime of their never ending game of chase (or what Life thinks is a chase, but Death knows otherwise) Life is utterly and completely Kise Ryouta, but Death has to wonder if the Fates hadn’t decided to play a little trick of their own to give them vessels that so resemble them in their truest form. Because Life abhors stagnation and a road that is not littered with challenges to thrill him, to take him higher, and Kise Ryouta is very much the same.

It is Kise Ryouta that Death follows home, but then death is everywhere and so he follows everyone home, though his eyes and ears are focused solely on the blond.

As the years move on since his passing, he watches Kise live on in a way only life can. Flourishing under his achievements, coloring under love, and bliss in a way Death will never understand as in all of his incarnation, Death never lives into a ripe old age and he never marries because death cannot create. However, Death never dies unhappy and only ever leaves at the peak of utter contentment.

Life, on the other hand, continues on.

As Kise Ryouta, he meets his wife under the ever watchful gaze of Death. With her, he brings into the world three beautiful and healthy children, two boys and a girl. One boy, the youngest, he names after Kuroko Tetsuya, and while Kise loves all his children with the fierce ferocity and protectiveness of any other father in the world, the little boy named Tetsuya stands just an inch taller than his siblings in his father’s heart. It is not to say that Kise spoils the boy over his siblings, but Death knows Life and sees the little nuances of his favoritism.

Ten years after Kuroko Tetsuya’s death, Aomine Daiki is shot multiple times during his stakeout and dies leaving behind the girlfriend he planned on proposing to at the end of that week. When Kise learns of it, he yells at the TV as the anchor woman commends the officer for his heroic deeds while on the force.

That night, Kise cries in his wife’s arms as Death greets Aomine like an old friend and simply smiles at the man’s expression. Aomine doesn’t leave without a fight, no one does, but Death is patient and only reminds him that if he is filled with too much regret, he would forever linger until he is no longer a soul, but a ghost of his former self.

When Aomine asks him if the perpetrator would ever be caught and brought to justice, Death only replies with a soft and sure answer.

“It is better to not dwell on matters of the living.”

As the years roll on, Life begins to age and slowly remembers himself while Kise Ryouta forgets. His children are older and have children of their own who love their grandpa even if he sometimes says things that are odd. He tells Tetsuya that he often sees his namesake standing watch, but the shadow quickly disappears when he tries to focus his aging eyes.

It is in his eighty-eighth year that Death finally stands before him and Kise only smiles as he states. “I knew you weren’t a figment of my imagination, Kurokocchi.”

“I never am,” Death answers as Kuroko Tetsuya and so many others all at once that had lived beside Life, but never with him.

Kise rubs his aged, shaky hands over his face and for a moment, when he looks at Kuroko, he is Life once more. When he speaks, the image shatters because Life cannot break free until Death takes Kise Ryouta’s hands and leads him away.

“You left too soon,” Kise says with years of hurt, anger and regret surfacing as he looks into the ever youthful and calm face of Kuroko. “You always leave too soon. You’re always out of my reach.” Here Death wonders what part of Kise Ryouta and what part of Life is confessing such a thing to him, and if he realizes what he is saying. “You always go where I can’t follow.”

Kuroko does not apologize because Kise is not looking for one. Instead, he quietly says, “You have lived a long life, Kise-kun.”

“But you never do!” Life cries in anger as he flickers within Kise, and he covers his face and in his form Death sees all the pain of those who are left behind. “You always leave me behind, stumbling as I pick up the pieces to go on.”

“And yet you do go on. Life flows ever forward,” Kuroko reminds him.

When Kise raises his head once more, he states a single name. “Aomine Daiki.”

Kuroko waits patiently.

“He was your favorite. You favored him over everyone else and yet you still allowed him to die in such a way.”

Mildly, Kuroko counters with, “Death does not pick favorites. Everyone is the same in the eyes of death because it is in death that everything is utterly and completely equal. He was  _your_  favorite, Kise-kun, because in this lifetime he was the challenge you have always been looking for.”

Kise shakes his head, closing dull amber eyes that had lived countless lifetimes. “He was not the only one.” And this Death knows to be true because Life always plays favorites, and has so many that being a favorite no longer meant anything special. “And what is a challenge when the one I wanted to prove myself to was no longer around to see it?”

“I am always around,” is Kuroko’s answer. “Death is always present.”

“You know what I mean, Kurokocchi,” Kise mutters, tired, worn and when he looks at Kuroko, at Death, there is a glimmer of a life at its end. “I’m tired, Tetsuya.”

“Yes, I know,” Death acquiesces. Silently, he holds out his hand to Kise Ryouta and says. “Shall I take you back, now?”

There is little hesitance in the way Kise accepts Death’s cold hand with a tiny smile and a quiet sigh.

When his wife finds him later that evening the one thing she constantly repeats when magazines and morning shows interviewers ask her in regards to the former famous super model that was her husband is the tried, but accurately true:

“He had never looked as peaceful in life as he did in death. It is as if he was reunited with an old dear friend.”

====

After Death makes Life realize the errors in his way of thinking in regards to death chasing after life, he asks, “Shall we put an end to this game of ours for a while?”

Seated beside Death, Life is busying himself by making a halo of flowers around the dead grass at his pale companion’s feet, amusing himself at the thought of capturing and trapping death in his grasp.

“We’ve been at it for some time. It’s really very troublesome,” Death continues, watching in quiet indulgence at Life’s antics.

Pushing up to stand before Death, Life smiles gently, “I agree. That last one was a bit painful. Kuroko Tetsuya looks too much like you for my liking.”

“But I _am_  Kuroko Tetsuya,” Death quips, quirking a brow in mild amusement at the look Life throws at him. “You’re not the only one with a sense of humor. You always seem to forget about the Fates.”

At the reminder of the three beings that constantly felt the need to dip their fingers into his business, Life makes a face. “I don’t enjoy their sense of humor, though.”

“No one ever does,” Death agrees. “But you’re wrong. Not all of them have a sense of humor.”

Life laughs and it is such a remarkable sound that it humbles Death. “ _He_  is too strict. Always insisting others to follow the path he picked for them. It’s amazing to watch him become flustered when they fight against him — don’t move!”

Death pauses, looking up as Life releases a loud sigh and crouches down before him, mourning over a wilted flower before he makes it bloom once more before standing up. “What are you doing?”

“I have spent countless lifetimes chasing after you. I’m tired of it,” Life states as he stares down at Death with sudden intensity. “Remain still for a moment, won’t you?”

Death wants to say that the one that is constantly moving was Life, but he keeps his tongue still as he stands quietly in place, waiting to see what trickery Life would throw at him. Except there is no trickery in his face as Life gazes down at Death, memorizing a face he had long taken for granted because death is a constant and unchanging thing unlike life.

Reaching forward, Life slips his long arms around Death’s cold shoulders and draws the smaller form close to his chest with a satisfied smile.

“Kise-kun?” Death questions in a confused manner reminiscence of his time as Kuroko Tetsuya as he looks up in the circle of Life’s arms.

“Let me have a moment,” Life requests as he presses warm lips against Death’s neck, not minding one bit how cold the other felt as he held him when his warmth was slowly creeping itself across his smaller companion’s form.

Silent, Death looks down when he feels a ticklish sensation to see the constant wilting and blooming of flowers at their feet where life and death coalesced.

More sober than he normally was, Death is silent as he allows Life to find whatever peace and solace he can, knowing that all too soon within the tick of an eternity, Life would once again ask Death to indulge him in another game of living another lifetime with Death living beside him, but never ever with him.


End file.
